Glaciar Martial, Ushuaia, Argentina

After a couple of days of not doing very much in Ushuaia (and Alba making me feel guilty) I decide to visit Glaciar Martial even though I´ve been told been told it`s not that impressive. To be honest I'm more interested in taking the chair lift and seeing Ushuaia and the Beagle Channel from an elevated viewpoint.

Hmm they are not big on health & safety here. Once on the chairlift there is nothing separating me from certain death but a tiny bar at hip level. I decide to keep deadly still on the way up. A few minutes in, my chair starts to vibrate violently and I breath a sigh of relief when it passes. The ride takes a good 15 minutes and I can see a man furiously waving at me to lift the hip bar up as the chair is on a carousel. I try but it won´t move. I tell him it's stuck. Looks like I'll be going down again. 'Take your feet off the bar' he yells. I feel a bit stupid.

Once off the chairlift I decide I have seen enough glaciers for a while and follow the panoramic viewpoint signs. Of course everyone else is heading for the glacier so I am blissfully alone. The views are certainly impressive.

I take the chairlift down and remember the bar this time. I decide I`ll walk the 7km back into town. Alba recommended I take a forest trail by a river instead of the road. I can´t find any signs pointing to a trail so I walk down the winding road. A car stops to offer me a lift but I have my ipod and the sun is shining so I decline. Half-way down I see a track off to the left and wonder whether this is the trail Alba was talking about.

In the dense beech forest the path winds back on itself several time so I`ve no idea where I`m going. Do I turn back before it's too late? El Chalten flashes through my head, but as I get occasionally glimpses of the town so I feel safe.

As I´m listening to my ipod I hear a loud crunch in the trees. I take out my ear phones and hear a high-pitched squealing followed by an eerie creaking. My heart starts to race. I can`t remember if Tierra del Fuego has pumas, and am desperately trying to recall a recent story I heard about someone being attacked. But wasn`t that Torres del Paine? I quicken my pace which I know is not the right thing to do. More squealing. What is it? Is it the trees? It sounds vaguely human. I look back as but can only see a dense mass of trees. I`m now flying through the trees and don`t stop until I exit, into some kind of derelict campsite with old rusted routemasters. At this point I promise myself I will never deviate from a signposted trail again.

As I`m walking across the campsite a young child yells at me. Am I on private land? He`s only asking where I`m going. I tell him I need to get back to town and he points me in the right direction.